


Morbid Anatomy

by sakuuya



Category: Battle for London in the Air
Genre: And discussions of murder, Does it count as corruption fic if the corruptee is doing a murder when we meet her?, Gen, Murder, POV Alternating, my two favorite things, partially described torture, what is chapter length consistency?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-09-24 08:45:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9713957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakuuya/pseuds/sakuuya
Summary: In which two awkward murderers try to figure out each other's intentions.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is seriously the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written.

Dr. Jhandir hesitated when he heard the gasp. He didn’t often investigate noises from alleyways. At worst, he could disturb some criminal who’d make him pay dearly for it, and even at best he’d just get an eyeful of a prostitute plying her disgusting trade. But that gasp sounded like Cordelia, and even though Dr. Jhandir had faith that she could handle herself (better than he himself could, if he was being honest), he still felt compelled to assist—Andrew would never forgive him if harm did befall Cordelia when he might have been able to prevent it.

When he laid eyes on the girl in the alley, for a moment the evening gloom made him think that it  _ was _ Cordelia, but then he realized that it was her sister, Celine. The girl was holding a knife and standing over a prone, bloody man. Dr. Jhandir was certain he recognized the look of joy on her face, though he’d never seen that expression from the outside. 

“Celine?” he said softly. His voice broke whatever spell she was under, and she looked up at him, her expression fading from delight to panic. Her knife clattered to the ground.

“Dr. Jhandir?” Celine’s eyes darted back and forth from the doctor to the bloodied man at her feet. “This isn’t—I mean—”

“It’s all right, Celine.” Dr. Jhandir closed the distance between them with slow, careful steps, not wanting her to bolt. He shrugged off his greatcoat and offered it to her, as her own clothes were spattered with blood. “Is there somewhere private we can go to get you cleaned up? I’m afraid you’d cause quite a stir if I brought you to my infirmary in this state.”

While he was helping her on with the coat, Dr. Jhandir took a moment to get a better look at the man (the corpse, he mentally corrected once he was close enough to tell) lying in a heap on the ground. The wounds he could make out—one on the left arm and two in the gut—were haphazardly placed, as though Celine hadn’t known quite where she wanted to stab. It looked, in all honesty, like the work of an amateur, though the doctor wasn’t about to offer that opinion aloud.

“We can go to my rooms,” Celine replied as Dr. Jhandir helped her into the jacket, his eyes still on the dead man. “Blarion won’t be home tonight.”

She started walking out of the alley without collecting her fallen knife, so Dr. Jhandir picked it up for her, slipping it into his medical bag and then trotting to catch up with her. They barely spoke as they made their way to Celine’s home. Occasionally, Celine would freeze up at some noise in the distance, and Dr. Jhandir would have to tug her along. It was unlikely that the body in the alley had been discovered so quickly, especially considering the area of the city they were in. But if it had, her behavior would be much more suspicious than the two of them calmly walking together.

They made it Celine’s home without incident, and once inside, Dr. Jhandir helped her out of the coat, the lining of which was now bloodstained. Ordinarily, that would bother him; getting blood out of silk was a nearly impossible task. But the air felt electrically charged, as if before a thunderstorm, and the doctor’s own sartorial integrity was the last thing on his mind.

“Go change and have a wash. I’ll make tea. You’re  _ certain _ your brother won’t be back tonight?”

Celine nodded. “One of Faye’s men broke his leg, so Blarion volunteered to pick up the slack. They’re bound for Calcutta and won’t be back for days. If he was here, I wouldn’t have—” She cut herself off abruptly and disappeared up the stairs.

Making tea in someone else’s kitchen was always strangely intimate. Dr. Jhandir couldn’t help rummaging around a bit as he located all the necessary components in the unfamiliar space, but he didn’t snoop as much as he might have in other circumstances; his thoughts were too occupied by Celine. On the stairs, she’d stopped herself from discussing the (apparent) murder, but why? Surely it couldn’t be an attempt at coyness. He hadn’t quite seen her do the deed, but the scene he’d stumbled on left little to the imagination.

By the time the tea was ready, Celine had come downstairs and taken a seat in the parlor. Dr. Jhandir studied every inch of her scrubbed-pink face as he handed her a cup with milk and sugar, looking for missed traces of blood and scrutinizing her expression. Celine shied away from the intensity of his gaze. Unusual for her—while her comportment was flawless, she was hardly some shrinking violet, and Dr. Jhandir had  _ never _ known her to be apprehensive about discussing anything grisly. Just the opposite, in fact.

He really had intended to let her speak first, but she seemed entirely intent on her tea, and the anticipation was nearly unbearable. 

“Who was he? The man in the alley. Did he hurt you?” Dr. Jhandir asked after several minutes of silence, endeavoring to sound as though he was only interested as her friend, as a physician. Perhaps there was some innocent explanation for what he had seen, after all. It wouldn’t do to show his hand too quickly.

Celine was silent for a long moment, and Dr. Jhandir worried that she had entered some sort of fugue, but eventually she replied: “No, he didn’t hurt me. I don’t know who he was, really.” She spoke slowly, like she was thinking hard about each word. Whatever had occurred in that alley must have given her quite a shock, to make her sound so unlike herself.

“Celine. Tell me what happened. You must know that nothing you say could possibly shock me. Surely our past discussions have at least proven that.”

“I...wanted to see what it was like,” Celine admitted after a moment

“You wanted to see what it was like to be mugged in an alley?” Dr. Jhandir said, still playing the naif. 

“I was feeling horribly uninspired, and I thought that if I knew what it was to kill, instead of just reading about it, my muse might return.” Celine’s voice finally gained some color, but she still didn’t look at Dr. Jhandir, in fact curling her whole body away from him as though she expected him to hit her after that confession.

Dr. Jhandir took a sip of tea before responding, to ensure that he didn’t appear overly enthusiastic. “I’m not here to pass judgement. I told you you’re incapable of shocking me, and that fact holds. I understand why you’re distraught”—though he found it difficult to reconcile her feelings of guilt with the obvious pleasure he’d seen her take in killing—“but that in itself might be a good thing, might it not? Not for your muse, perhaps, but you attempted something, ah, ill-considered, and now you know that it isn’t for you. Your guilt may save you from making similarly rash decisions in the future.”

Celine mumbled something that Dr. Jhandir couldn’t quite catch.   


“Could you speak up, please?” he asked, trying to sound as gentle as possible. 

“I don’t feel guilty for what I did!” Celine exclaimed as she finally met the doctor’s gaze with her wild eyes. “I mean—I do, but when I was killing that man, I  _ loved _ it. Already I want to do it again!” She broke off with sob.   
  
Dr. Jhandir was lucky that the girl had buried her face in her hands again, because it took him a moment to stifle the smile that bloomed on his face. He was internally debating how best to console her without scaring her away in the process when she spoke up again, quite unexpectedly.

“You’ve killed people before, haven’t you?” she asked hesitantly, as though she didn’t already know the answer.

“Of course. We’ve spoken of some of my government work.”

“Did...did it take you like this, the first time? All these contradictory emotions?”

“The circumstances were very different,” Dr. Jhandir said carefully. In all their previous conversations together, she’d never asked about his mental state, always more interested in the physiological effects of the various procedures he’d performed. “I was in a controlled laboratory environment, surrounded by men who regularly performed similar work and, thus, to whom death was unremarkable. I think it very likely that you would be reacting differently if tonight had been less chaotic.”

He didn’t mention the medical-school classmate who’d jumped off the edge of  Γ  after he dosed the man with a powerful hallucinogen, nor the one whose car had exploded, fatally, thanks to a little tinkering with its boiler. Those arm’s-length deaths had done nothing to prepare him for the transcendent experience of watching a victim bleed out before his eyes.

Celine looked unhappy with his answer, so he added, “It has been my experience that an ignored desire will eventually fade. If you’re that distraught about how tonight transpired, I’m sure your will is strong enough to prevent recurrence.”

“You truly think that if I can remain steadfast and ignore the desire to kill again, it will stop bothering me?” 

“I believe it will,” Dr. Jhandir affirmed, though he hadn’t meant that—just the opposite, really.

“Thank you for being so understanding. I’m sorry I’ve been such a blubbering mess.” She dabbed her still-damp eyes with a handkerchief.

“Not at all. I’m pleased that I was able to help you through this. Would you like me to remain here tonight?”

“No, I’m sure I’ll be all right, but thank you all the same.” 

Dr. Jhandir nodded. “Still, if you ever need someone to talk to regarding what happened, I’ll make sure I’m available. Don’t mention a bit of what you did or what we spoke about to anyone else, even your siblings.”

“I wasn’t planning to,” Celine said wryly, sounding more like herself than she had all evening. She even ventured a little smile. “I’m glad you were the one to find me.”

“That means a lot to me, Celine.” And it did; he found himself feeling genuinely touched. He stood and added: “If there’s nothing else you need, I should be getting back to my infirmary. Good night, Celine.”   


“Good night, doctor.”

Celine walked Dr. Jhandir to the door, and once she had closed it behind him, he had the whole walk back to the infirmary to contemplate the evening’s events. He considered Celine a smart, strong-willed young lady. If she really put her mind into resisting the urge to kill, she would probably never kill again.

Dr. Jhandir smiled in the darkness. Well, he’d just have to take matters into his own hands.


	2. Chapter 2

Celine wasn’t surprised to receive a letter from Dr. Jhandir asking that she come to the infirmary. In all honesty, she had expected him to reach out sooner. They hadn’t spoken in nearly a month, not since the night he’d found her in the alley. Celine would have called on him herself, regardless of the impropriety, had she any idea what to say to the man. Asking him to check her sketches for anatomical correctness seemed trite now, and talking about his government work was...risky, since her interest was much more than academic these days.

Dr. Jhandir opened his door himself, which was strange for him, even when he was expecting visitors. “Celine,” he said, smiling and ushering her into his office. “No need to remove your hat and gloves; we’re going right back out.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the home of a friend of mine. I have something I want to show you.”

Celine sighed quietly. She thought she’d gotten past Dr. Jhandir’s tendency toward obfuscation by this point. From what Faye had told her of his circumstances, she understood the doctor’s desire for caution, but _surely_ she had proven herself trustworthy by now. Still, she followed him out of the infirmary and to the tram station, where he paid for both of their tickets to Central Crossing. The trams in the southern half of the city were mostly used by workers going to and from their jobs, and were empty enough in-between that Celine and Dr. Jhandir had an entire car to themselves.

“So, how is your art coming? It’s been so long since we’ve talked,” Dr. Jhandir said just as Celine was gearing up to press him for more details about their destination. She suspected he’d done it on purpose, but she responded anyway, starting with another sigh.

“I’ve barely even been able to sketch, let alone paint,” she confessed. “I’m full of inspiration, but every time I sit down to commit my thoughts to canvas, I just feel so disgusted with myself. It’s awful.” Seeing the unspoken question on Dr. Jhandir’s face, she took another look around the empty car, just in case, and added, “No, I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Has it been difficult?” Dr. Jhandir’s gaze on her was as intense as it had been when he was initially questioning her about the murder, and she fought the urge to look away. He was just concerned for her, and he probably couldn’t help how he came off.

Celine nodded. “The strange thing is, I keep thinking that I could do better. Than what I did to that man, I mean. I was so surprised by the physicality of it all was that I couldn’t try any of the things I was most interested in. I know it sounds terrible, but that’s what my thought process has been. I’ve resisted giving into it so far.”

“Impressive. You’ve shown great fortitude.” The tram chuffed to a stop, and Dr. Jhandir stood and added, “I think it would be wise to refrain from discussing this further, for the moment. You never know who may be eavesdropping.”

When they reached their apparent destination, a small brick building on Π—or maybe Ξ, Celine wasn’t quite used to the geography of London-in-the-Air—Dr. Jhandir didn’t knock on the door, but rather took a key from his bag and unlocked it himself. Inside, the house was silent.

“Where’s your friend?” Celine asked.

“She had to leave the city quite suddenly some weeks ago, I’m afraid,” Dr. Jhandir replied, as though that was any kind of answer. But the place didn’t look like it had lain empty for weeks, so perhaps Dr. Jhandir’s friend had entrusted him with keeping her home neat while she was away. That still failed to explain why he’d brought Celine, though.

She’d often found it was best to be direct: “Why are we here?”

“I told you, I have something to show you,” Dr. Jhandir said, evasive as ever as he hung up their outerwear, as well as his jacket. “Follow me.”

Celine considered refusing, just so Dr. Jhandir would know that she wasn’t some puppy who’d trail blindly after him, but the circumstances were so odd (had she ever even seen the doctor in his shirtsleeves before?) that her curiosity got the best of her, so she followed him deeper into the house. They passed an open doorway to a miniscule parlor before coming to a closed door, which Dr. Jhandir opened.

The room beyond was set up a lot like Dr. Jhandir’s own office, albeit smaller and without all the crates of rebellion supplies lying around. The operating table drew Celine’s attention immediately. It was occupied by a nude, restrained man. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t even struggling against his bonds.

“Is he dead?” was the first thing she could think to say. Dr. Jhandir pulled a stethoscope from his bag, but as Cellist followed him closer to the operating table, she could see the rise and fall of the man’s breathing, though he wasn’t otherwise moving a muscle. Even his eyes were perfectly still, fixed on the dingy ceiling.

“No, just immobilized.” The man didn’t flinch when Dr. Jhandir pressed the stethoscope’s bell to his bare chest. “I dosed him with a paralytic I developed while I was working in the Science Division. Not that I received any credit for it, of course, but it _is_ my creation.”

Celine knew from experience that when Dr. Jhandir got on a tear about how he was treated by the government, he sometimes kept going until she snapped him out of it. And honestly, she was willing to let him rant today while she tried to figure out what the hell he thought he was doing.

Unfortunately for her, the presence of the paralyzed man seemed to focus Dr. Jhandir’s thoughts: “I assure you he’s still able to feel pain, just not respond to it. I’ve tested the serum quite thoroughly on that point. I thought it prudent because in a densely-packed neighborhood like this, his screams might attract undue attention.” He smiled at her like this foresight was something to be proud of.

“What do you expect me to do?” Celine snapped. She had a pretty good idea, but she wanted to make him admit it, as some kind of penance for bringing her here.

Dr. Jhandir looked surprised. “You said yourself on the tram that you wished you could try killing again in more controlled circumstances.”

“No! I—That was just my mind trying to trick me into making a mistake. I don’t want this.” That wasn’t entirely true; the man on the table kept drawing her eye, and her thoughts swam with all the procedures she could perform on a completely immobilized person. But she sorely _wanted_ it to be true.

“If you’re certain,” Dr. Jhandir said, but he didn’t stop laying tools from his bag on the tray beside the table.

“I am!” Celine insisted, sounding a bit too forceful even to her own ears. “So you can put all of that away. I’m leaving.”

Apparently unfazed, Dr. Jhandir crossed to a phonograph that was squatting incongruously on a table by the wall, wound it, and placed the needle. As classical music began to filter softly through the room, he came back to the operating table, rolled his sleeves, and picked up a scalpel.

“What are you doing?” Celine asked.

“I can’t simply let him leave,” Dr. Jhandir said as he made a delicate incision in the man’s chest. “He’s seen my face and heard my voice—and yours as well, now. Besides, the city doesn’t need him in it. I have it on good authority that he beat a dockside whore half to death. He won’t be missed.”

Dr. Jhandir continued cutting into the man as he spoke; it was obvious from his mien that he was supremely comfortable here. Celine couldn’t help but linger in the doorway. Even before she’d committed murder herself, she had dreamed of being able to watch Dr. Jhandir work. There was only so much she could learn from a written description or even an illustration, after all, and the doctor was the best source of information she’d ever met. The impression she’d picked up from their past conversations was that his days as a torturer were well behind him, though, so she had assumed that she would never get the chance to see his work for herself.

After a brief internal struggle, her curiosity won out, and she drifted back into the surgery. The lack of reaction from the man on the table was surreal. He looked just like a corpse, open-eyed and unmoving, except for the way his blood flowed as Dr. Jhandir carved furrows into his skin. Celine wished she’d brought a sketchpad.

They formed a near-tableau for several minutes, with the only motion in the room coming from Dr. Jhandir’s arm as he scored the still flesh before him. Celine compared the precision and grace of his incisions to the clumsy way she had dispatched the man in the alley. She knew that the difference was just a matter of experience, but her treacherous mind kept thinking that she could do, if not quite as well as the doctor, then nearly so under similar circumstances, such as her current ones…

No. It was better to watch Dr. Jhandir. That way, Celine didn’t have to feel guilty for this man’s death. Dr. Jhandir clearly intended to kill him regardless of her feelings on the matter, and it wasn’t as though she’d asked the doctor to select someone for her to murder.

So why had he done it? That was the real question. Everything about tonight—the music, the choice of victim, the careful (beautiful) way he worked—made it clear that this was some kind of performance intended for her benefit, if “benefit” was even the right word. What the hell did he gain from tempting her in such a manner? Was he trying to test whether she was a potential danger to him? Did he just want to lord her weakness over her? He’d been so supportive and understanding before.

Celine tried to focus on her anger and frustration with Dr. Jhandir, to use it as ballast against her rising desire, but it was difficult when she had fantasized for so long about this exact situation. She inched closer and closer to the operating table. Once she was near enough to reach out and touch the paralyzed man, she stopped and took a deep, steadying breath.

It was time to take mental stock, before she did something that she’d regret. Even as she thought that, though, Celine wasn’t sure whether she’d regret joining Dr. Jhandir or not doing so. Both, perhaps. But deep inside, she knew what she wanted, and her attempts to talk herself out of it felt hollow. The guilt would be a problem, certainly, but she might never have an opportunity like this again.

Celine picked up a scalpel from the tray, the perfect twin of the one the doctor was holding, and made a shallow incision into the man’s as-yet-unmarked forehead, because she’d read that that area bled profusely at the slightest cut. She wasn’t disappointed. After a moment, she tore her gaze away from the flowing blood to glare defiantly at Dr. Jhandir. She had expected him to look back at her with judgement or contempt, but he just smiled, wide and joyous. He looked the way she felt as she continued to cut, all the stress and doubt she’d been holding in for the last month washed away by the thrill of watching their victim’s blood well up from the cuts she made.

Dr. Jhandir’s reserved professionalism melted away too. Soon, he was practically chattering at her about technique, as relaxed and happy as Celine had ever seen him.

“How did you manage to keep a straight face all this time?” she asked, after he cheerfully related a story about skinning alive a cellist who wouldn’t stop touching him whenever they were in a room together. It was, she noticed, the first time he’d ever mentioned killing anyone outside of his government work.

“Today, you mean?”

“Any day! Your answers to my questions are always so clinical. I had assumed that all this”—she gestured with her scalpel to the man on the table—“was just a job to you. Even when I was sobbing to you about how much I enjoyed killing that man in the alley, you pretended you had no idea how I felt!”

“You were...distraught,” Dr. Jhandir said carefully, pausing the flow of his incisions for the first time since he’d begun. “I didn’t know how you’d react when you were in such a fragile state, and I couldn’t risk alienating you when you were finally beginning to understand.”

“You had plenty of chances before that,” Celine rebutted.

“It’s hardly information one should volunteer without being asked. Until I saw the expression on your face when you were standing over the body of a man you murdered, I couldn’t be sure it was safe to tell you, and after that you were hysterical. Besides, what good would knowing my mental state have done? You paint tortures, not torturers.”

Celine burst out laughing, a reaction that seemed to startle Dr. Jhandir. “I tried to work up the nerve to kill for a long time before my lack of inspiration finally forced my hand. If I’d known how you feel, I would’ve asked for your help long before that. And I’m sure the experience would’ve been, oh, less fraught. You said that having other people around helped you be all right, your first time.”

“My first intimate kill was _revelatory_ , Celine. I undersold my reaction last time we talked. You understand it—the sudden flowering of a part of yourself that you didn’t even suspect existed. I should have done more to help you come to terms with that feeling. Consider this wretch an apology, I suppose. I do hope you’re finding him less stressful.”

Celine made a soft sound in her throat, almost a sigh, as she looked down at the man on the table, at the intricate network of red lines she and Dr. Jhandir had carved into him. They were beautiful, the best piece of art she’d ever created. There was no room for guilt in the face of such a masterpiece.

“I want to finish him off. Will you show me where to cut? This is a bit more intense than reading an anatomy book,” she said. One of the tricks that every artist had to learn was when a work was finished; overpainting just left things muddled.

“I’d be happy to.” Dr. Jhandir said, his smile becoming yet more radiant. He came around behind her and placed his right hand over hers, which was holding the scalpel. As he guided her toward the man’s throat, he said, “This is the carotid artery. Normally, opening it would produce an impressive spray, but our subject has already lost a lot of blood. Even so, a wound here will be fatal. Ready?”

Celine nodded, breathless with anticipation. Dr. Jhandir guided their hands to cut a sweeping line down the man’s neck, which immediately welled up with more blood than any of their other cuts had yielded. Celine felt like she might cry from the beauty of it as she watched the blood spill across and over the table.

“Are you all right?” Dr. Jhandir asked after a moment. He fished out his handkerchief with his left hand and passed it to her. Celine pressed it to her eyes and realized that she _was_ crying.

In an attempt to get control of herself, she tried a joke: “It’s just my artistic temperament, you know. Can’t be helped.”

Dr. Jhandir kept staring at her, concern butting the luminous joy on his face.

“Really, I’m fine,” Celine added. “I’m not upset; I just… I didn’t expect his death to be so exquisite.” The man was dead now, clearly so. Celine had been so tuned to the spilling of his blood that its absence, now that his heart had stopped beating, felt momentous.

“I understand completely.” Dr. Jhandir smiled again, looking relieved. “For a woman of so little experience, your work is breathtaking.”

“I wouldn’t have done anything like this if it wasn’t for you.”

“That sounds like an accusation,” Dr. Jhandir said in a deadpan tone that Celine was almost certain meant he was joking

“I didn’t mean it like that,” she replied, just in case. “I promise, you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. I just wouldn’t have had the courage to pursue my desires without you. I’m happy with the choices I made.”

“Excellent! That’s all I wanted for you, Celine.”

In fact, she could feel guilt licking at the sides of her mind like a flame, but it was hardly the overwhelming wave that had crashed over her last time. And it was difficult to feel anything but happiness in the halo of Dr. Jhandir’s joy, which persisted even as he began to scrub the blood from the table and floor.

“Would you like any help?" she asked. "After everything you did for me today, it feels rude not to help you clean.”

“Not at all,” Dr. Jhandir said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I didn’t give you enough information to dress properly for this little outing, and it wouldn’t do to bring you back covered in blood.”

There was a _lot_ of blood. Celine knew how much a human body contained, of course, but it was quite another thing to actually see so much of it spread out at once.

“And the body?”

“Don’t trouble yourself about it. I’ll dismember it and toss the pieces over the edge once it gets dark. That’s just butchery; there’s no skill to it.”

“Did they ever find my body?” It was the first time she’d ever called the man she killed _hers_ out loud. Taking ownership like that, even of such a clumsy murder, sent a thrill down her spine.

“I assume so, but I can’t say for certain,” Dr. Jhandir responded. “I’ve been paying close attention to the papers, but our benevolent government has some very strong ideas about what is and is not worthy of publication. Corpses turning up on the lower platforms…well, as long as there aren’t too many of them, and they didn’t die in terribly interesting ways, they’re barely worthy of comment. If that man had been anyone important, his death would have generated some kind of furor by now.”

“Oh, good.” She didn’t mention all the nights she’d lain awake wondering if the detectives were about to break down her door. On that note, she added, “May I come back tonight to help dispose of this one?”

Dr. Jhandir shrugged, but he seemed happy to be asked. “If you’d like. Dress down—trousers, perhaps. Oh, and I have one further condition.” He paused, obviously for dramatic effect, and Celine stifled her urge to laugh.

“And what is that?” she prompted.

“You may not disappear again. I understand that you were suffering from emotional turmoil, but now that that’s sorted, I would strongly prefer we remain in regular contact.”

This time, Celine did laugh. “I’ve no intention of falling out of contact again. Honestly.”

Calling her conscience “sorted” was overstating things a bit, she thought, but Dr. Jhandir’s presence, his obvious delight in their crimes, only helped. Besides, Celine had so many more things she wanted to discuss with him, now that she’d seen his skill and enthusiasm firsthand.

“In fact,” she continued, quashing her hesitation, “I’d very much like it if we could do this again, together. It was”— _instructive_ , she almost said, but that did no justice to the bright, hot feeling in her breast. What was the word the doctor had used?—“revelatory.”

“Of course. It’s been too long since I’ve been able to indulge myself this way, and…” Dr. Jhandir paused again, but this one seemed born more of genuine hesitance than affect. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have found a kindred soul in you. We’ll have to wait a while, however. Close together, otherwise-unremarkable disappearances can become suspicious. But that will give me a chance to find a location where we needn’t worry so much about the neighbors. My paralytic has its uses, but it dulls the impact somewhat when one’s subject can’t respond appropriately.”

“I’d love that,” Celine said breathlessly, already hearing with her mind’s ear the way an unparalyzed man might scream when she cut into him. She could still feel the phantom warmth of Dr. Jhandir’s hand over hers as they delivered the killing blow. With the doctor by her side, Celine’s future looked to be positively overflowing with revelation.


End file.
